June 27th
Rain on the morning of the last stage
We were roused from our sleep by an unusual sound early in the morning. It was actually raining! Since the start of the race we had only seen clear blue skies, nearly cloudless, and temperatures topping 30°C. And today the sky was gray and cloudy. A sliver of hope remained, however, because the other teams would be in a less fortunate position than we would if the sun were to shine less. Yet as the racers were assembling in the starting lineup, the sun broke through the gray and shortly after there were only a few clouds left. Great for the solar-powered cars, but unfortunately for everyone though. more

June 25th & 26th
Loose contact delays start in the field
You test and check things for hundreds of kilometers and everything runs smoothly and is good to go. Then suddenly a simple thing like a loose contact throws you off entirely. All of the solar-powered cars were already in the starting lineup: Team Michigan was the first to start at 9 a.m., with the rest of the teams following them by the minute. The SolarWorld No.1 was third to start, but in reality it was more like a jolt. The racer didn’t really even move forward much and the engine was making odd sounds. The team was there in an instant to push the racer off to one side. They opened the top casing and tried to flick a few levers to get the SolarWorld No.1 back into gear. But after 30 seconds, the starter got a little anxious and gave the team just a few more seconds to allow two students to lift up the nose of the SolarWorld No.1 and try to turn the drive wheel. Nothing budged. more

June 23th and 24th
Past the lake with a new engine – the SolarWorld No.1 holds on to its strong position despite problems
“It’s awesome,” one of the most often uttered comments about the SolarWorld No.1 , even from our competitors. The organizers are endeavoring to keep the solar-powered racing cars together at each checkpoint and stage stop to present them to the public as a group. The SolarWorld No.1 is always in the spotlight at this “beauty” contest. The duck in the Missouri team, which is traveling them as a lucky charm, agrees, too. The SolarWorld No.1 didn’t quite make it to the very front on this stretch, even though the start in Topeka seemed rather promising. more

June 22nd
SolarWorld No.1 reaches the first stage stop in the capital of Kansas. Rain can be seen much better over the wide open range. And from the north there was a bad weather front with menacing dark clouds moving in. The team had been fearing a dramatic change in weather and had throttled the speed of the SolarWorld No.1 to consume less energy and spare the batteries for the “bad times”. And that on a day where everything had been going smoothly since the start early that morning. SolarWorld No.1 was parked directly along the on-ramp to the highway and could reintegrate into the flow of traffic with ease. There were only 130 miles left to the next stage stop when the sky suddenly turned black. more

June 21st
It’s high noon in Broken Arrows. The event organizers chose the day where the sun reaches its highest point for the kick-off of the 2010 American Solar Challenge. And at 36°C, the power of the sun could be felt clearly here in Oklahoma in the middle of America. Qualifications took place last week in Texas on a closed racing circuit. The solar-powered cars were put to the test for three long days on the racetrack and few were able to live up to the challenge as well as the SolarWorld No.1, because the virtues of German engineering such as robustness, durability, and sustainability came through shining. The SolarWorld No.1 only needed to come to the box once for a tire change, whereas its competitors lost much time, in part, through numerous small-scale repairs. However there was still a second of great despair when a strong gust suddenly swept the race car away and spun it around. The driver was powerless to stop his car and had to watch as his car was simply lifted and tipped onto its side. more

October 30th
Very early in the morning around 4.30 a.m. a road train forced us to move the Moho. The team was waking up one after the other and got ready for the final day. more

October 29th
With our little detour and the frictionless ride of SolarWorldNo.1 we were 750 kilometres behind the team. But the early bird catches the worm: 6 a.m. the dawn is breaking at the mystic Ayers Rock, just a quick coffee and we hit the road to chase the SolarWorldNo.1. So we drove all day, just taking breaks for gas, coffee and sandwiches. Passing the lunar landscape of Coober Pedy all the way down on Stuart Highway till we finally arrived at the team’s campsite for the night, which was ca. 35 kilometres away of Port Augusta. more

October 28th
Alice Springs! In the morning around 8:30 a.m., SolarWorld No.1 entered the beautiful place in the middle of the desert. The crew used the obligatory half-an-hour check point at the Crown Plaza to shower off the red desert dust. With a coffee and a couple of Muffins SolarWorld No.1 hit the road again. Again, an easy, smooth trip without any incidents was laying in front of the team. more

October 27th
Good morning sleepy, small Tennant Creek! There was one tyre shop in town, of which we tried to get a new spare wheel for the Moho from. Instead with the tyre we walked away with “I don’t have it now, come back tomorrow at 11 a.m. or go to Alice Springs”, which was 500 kilometres away. SolarWorldNo.1 was about to enter Tennant Creek so we decided to take the risk and move on with the team to Alice Springs. more

October 26th
Business as usual: Getting up at 4.30 a.m., setting up everything to charge the racer with sun power. Precisely at 8 a.m. lead, racer and chaser started moving – when the racer suddenly stopped: A flat tyre, which could not be fixed without the help of the BO Cruiser team, another team of the Bochum University. Important 45 minutes were lost so that SolarWorldNo.1 only arrived mid-day in Dunmarra. For the rest of the trip sun was on our side when we arrived at this night’s campsite ca. five kilometres off Banka Banka. While the crew adjusted the racer’s top towards the sun, strategy team member Andrej finished his end-of-the-day-analysis: “Despite the breakdown in the beginning, we managed to drive 510 kilometres – 50 kilometres less than planned. The tail wind was beneficial, but later on we had to face dust clouds and strong head and cross winds.” Not every team was able to cope with the wind: Team Umicore, which has already faced technical problems at the qualifying, was caught by a wind and crashed. For them the race was over, collecting the car’s pieces. more

October 25th
more

October 24th
more

October 23rd, 8.30 a.m. local time
Today the qualifying of this year’s “Global Green Challenge” kicked off in Darwin, Australia – at that time nobody expected that this was going to be such a thrilling and tough experience. Amongst 35 teams from 15 countries, the Solar Racer Number 1 team fought for the participation in the 3,000 kilometre-challenge across the country, from Darwin to Adelaide. more

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